PSF/AIX: tray selection on PCL printer
ITEM: RTA000161199
Q:
Topic thread:
Printer Systems (PRINT - NA/ATS)
PSF/AIX
PRINT XPSF6000
Hello,
The customer has PSF/6000 running on AIX 4.3.2. He has several
printers (ie. HP LJ 4000T) with several trays. In the chaining bin
mapping options, he can only address the top and bottom tray of the
printer. Is there any way to address the middle tray(s) on these
kind of printers. The HP LJ 4000T has three trays and a manual tray.
He doesn't succeed in using the middle tray. Can you assist, please?
A:
Have you tried using the Alternate tray in the Bin Mapping Options to
map to the HP LJ 4000T's middle tray? You would specify the hardware
numerical value for the middle tray (according to the HP documentation)
as the "TRAY number". Then you would specify the bin number you wish
to specify in your formdef as the value for "JOB bin number". You can
even change the name from "Alternate" to "Middle".
Note that you have to stop and restart PSF/AIX for the changed values
to take effect (psfctl -dtu prtname).
Unfortunately I don't have access to a printer to test this, but I
think it should work.
If this doesn't work for you, can you give me details on what you have
tried?
Q:
Here's what the customer sent:
I endly find a solution, which I don't find logical ¢¢
Situation :
I use a HP printer of type 4000 T with an extra tray.
On the physical printer I see the following numbers :
- tray # 1 = manual tray
- tray # 2 = first tray
- tray # 3 = second tray
- tray # 4 = extra tray
In the bin mapping panel on the AIX the tray mapping name better
reflects the trays then then tray number.
Specific :
Bin mapping settings ---> prints on printer tray
Upper name -- job bin # 1 -- tray # 1 ---> tray # 2
lower name -- job bin # 2 -- tray # 4 ---> tray # 4 (extra tray)
manual name - job bin # 100 - tray # 2 ---> tray # 1 (manual tray)
alternate -- job bin # 4 -- tray # 5 ---> tray # 3
I think that the default settings, with a little change for the alterna-
te job bin number, and the use of the bin mapping name better helps
the administrator to define a tray then trying to use a (logic) bin
number.
But what if there are more then 4 (or 5) trays ???
Is there an explanation for the mapping of tray number 5 in the "bin
mapping panel" on the reel tray 3 (or alternate try) ?? Or which is
the correct explanation so I can understand such unlogical working ???
The customer also told me that on WinNT, the driver shows tray1 in PSF
for the tray1 on the printer and so on, so there it is logical and
easy to use. Why is it so much different on AIX and where is the logic
or how can he determine which bin tray to select for a certain tray
on the printer, because now it's just trial and error.
Can you assist on this please.
A:
Here is the information I received from the developer who owns this
section of code. Please reopen if you have additional questions.
Only five bins are supported -- this is true for PSF/2, PSF/AIX, and
Infoprint Manager. The way the code is currently written, it is
hardcoded for a maximum of five.
The 0 bin ID comes from the Formdef and that comes from the AFP
architecture. This is the lowest bin value and the default used as
defined in the architecture. In general, we want these values to map
to the most used tray on the printer.
Over time, customer asked for numbers to be specialized, and some
printers were demanding it (mostly the small printers trying to
implement IPDS so they could broaden their market), so they formalized
it in the AFP architecture, even though it makes no real sense. As a
result, AFP has a certain convention, and so does IPDS. The bin
numbers in AFP have one added to them to get the Job Bin Number
entered for PSF's use.
The Tray Numbers were assigned by various companies depending on what
the hardware required, and also so they didn't conflict with patents
taken out by others in the field. As a result, each line of printer
tends to have slightly different tray numbers for various trays.
The only way PSF could deal with this in a general way was to allow a
mapping between the Job Bin Number and Tray Number. PSF/2 did this
using the architectural defaults for IPDS at the time the PCL
generating code was written (early 90's). PSF/AIX evolved from PSF/2,
and Infoprint Manager has evolved from PSF/AIX. Some architectural
features have since changed, but the code has not because we haven't
had any customers asking for a rewrite in this area.
I'm assuming your talking about the AFP Windows Driver. The logic
is a combination of the formdef and the printer documentation. The
printer documentation tells you what Tray Numbers exist on the
printer, and the formdefs that the customer uses or which get built
by the AFP Driver tell you what Job Bin Numbers to use. The PSF/AIX
administrator must map the Job Bin Number (formdef) to the Tray
Numbers that the printer supports. This is the only way I know of,
besides trial and error, to set things up the way you actually want
them to be.
If your customer feels there is a strong requirement to support more
than five input bins for PCL printers driven by PSF, you will need to
submit a product requirement to Product Marketing for evaluation.
Since PSF/AIX is functionally stabilized and goes out of service in
January 2001, any enhancements would only be considered for a future
release of Infoprint Manager.
I hope that helps clarify the situation somewhat. Please reopen if
you have additional questions.
S e a r c h - k e y w o r d s:
psf/6000 psf/aix psf aix infoprint ipmgr tray bin input job number
formdef selection psf/2 os/2 i-data secondary pcl ppds mapping
WWQA: ITEM: RTA000161199 ITEM: RTA000161199
Dated: 01/2000 Category: XPSF6000
This HTML file was generated 2000/11/30~13:34:12
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